By all accounts, the inaugural Nike LGBT Sports Summit in
Oregon last weekend was a smashing success. Thirty participants from 20 some
organizations ranging from the National Collegiate Athletic Association to the
National Center for Lesbian Rights gathered at Nike headquarters in Beaverton to
share meals and drinks and talk about how to coordinate efforts to curb
homophobia in sports. But ultimately the summit will not be judged by how great
it felt for the folks to be there, but by what happens next.

Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of http://www.Outsports.com,
said he got the idea for the summit last fall during a visit by out Oregon
State softball coach Kirk Walker.

"I had the idea of having a meeting to get people
together and Kirk mentioned Nike," Zeigler told the Bay Area Reporter
. "The idea was that organizations would start
working together instead of working as separate entities, instead of looking at
each other as competition."

Indeed. Over the past couple of years, a bonanza of
organizations and initiatives have sprung into being to join the sports
branches of LGBT rights organizations that were already working in the field.
Where once we had no advocates, now we have the You Can Play project, the Stand
Up Foundation, Equality Coaching Alliance, Changing the Game, the NCLR Sports
Project, Athlete Ally, and Kye Allums's Transition Tour.

Those were some of the groups meeting with representatives
from heavyweights such as ESPN, NCAA, Nike, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance
Against Defamation.

"The most amazing and positive thing began on the first
night at the first social, when the networking and the conversations were being
had between groups that had never previously communicated," said Walker.
"That was unprecedented."

The Friday, June 15, socializing was followed by daylong
talks and presentations.

"We definitely addressed the establishing of a core
mission for a coalition – not an organization, but a coalition of
organizations," Walker said. "There was discussion about funding
models and trying to figure out some opportunities to accomplish some of the
mission and the goals. But the majority of the time was about getting greater
clarity about how to align better to work together more than doing the same
work as each other."

Walker said the summit ended with "our clearly stated
mission as a coalition to end bullying and LGBT bias and discrimination in
sport." He added that a core goal of the coalition was "Redefining
the Champion."

A summary of the coalition goals said the image of what a
champion is "has been a declining criteria for years in sport. The
character and what defines our athletic champions has been is sharp decline due
to the factors of media, finances, marketing, winning-at-all-cost mentality and
the all mighty dollar in sport. So the characteristics that we used to look for
and value in our athletic leaders has been lost and champions have been used to
describe someone that has won. Being a champion is more than winning, it is
succeeding at leading, unifying, overcoming challenges, excelling. ... Just as
being a champion is more than just winning or should be more than just winning.
So Redefining the Champion is about raising the standards beyond outcome and
stressing far more about how we choose to be inclusive and valuing of qualities
regardless of sex, race, religion, socio-economic status, sexuality, or gender
identities on the pursuit to athletic excellence."

A second summit is planned for next year. A news release
from the coalition said it had four goals before that summit: engage the major
American pro sports leagues to work coalition members toward greater inclusion;
increase the visibility of college athletes, coaches and allies; develop and
get national youth and adult recreational leagues to adopt a model LGBTQ
inclusive policy; and make 2 million young athletes and their physical
education teachers and coaches aware of the coalition's definition of a
champion.

"I think one of the things I learned at the summit is
you can't just expect people to play like a team unless they have trust,"
Zeigler said. "I think being in the room together, while they came in
thinking that some of these people might be competition, they walked away with
an understanding of each other. When you have your meals together and take
cocktails, I think a trust starts to build. I think that's one of the big
takeaways."

I have often written that sports seems to be the forgotten
ugly stepchild of LGBT politics and culture – the invaluable but
neglected aspect of our lives which, when we neglect it, makes homophobic stereotypes
self-reinforcing. It's been nearly 40 years since David Kopay became the first
American major professional athlete to come out, yet we still have not had a
single major male pro player in the country come out during his career, and
homophobic slurs remain far too commonplace in locker rooms and on playing
fields all the way down to the neighborhood pick-up games.

"There's been so little communication, so little
collaboration in sports," Walker said. "I think there was definitely
a strong belief at the summit that the gains in sports that happened over the
past 40 years have been so minimal because of the lack of unified efforts
– a lack of concerted focus and all the organizations being on the same
page."

And that makes this the perfect time to turn the page and
start a new chapter, with new definitions.

This week, two of the groups that were at the summit,
Athlete Ally and GLAAD, announced that they would partner to offer proactive
training sessions for all major professional teams in the United States "to
empower pro sports organizations to stand against homophobia and
transphobia."

"Athletes are leaders," Hudson Taylor, the
wrestler who founded Athlete Ally, said. "Today more than ever,
professional players have the power to affirm, connect and inspire people
around the world. By taking small steps based on simple ideas at the heart of
sportsmanship – like treating others as you want to be treated –
professional sports can unite communities and create a better and more
inclusive tomorrow."